Photo on iPad, the iCloud sync madness

[Stepan Pazderka]

Let me start quite harsh. I hate the current state of document handling of Affinity Photo on iPad. It makes all the simple operations extremely confusing. Every single app on my iPad has adopted simple way of working with files, if you want to create new file, your file gets created in the specific app folder on iCloud Drive. iWork works this way, Pixelmator Photo works this way, Pixelmator works this way. Etc.

However, apps in Affinity Photo on iPad are not stored in iCloud Drive by default. Heck, they are not even stored in local files app. No. They are effectively stored in restricted local app storage, outside of iCloud Drive, outside of files. Affinity calls these files “open”. Meaning they are somehow opened in Affinity Photo. Technically, they are just file copies inside of restricted affinity photo app storage.

Why this bothers me? Because whenever I create duplicate of files, or new file in Affinity Photo, I name it, I also have to remember to save it inside iCloud Drive. I have to do this every single time when I want to save changes.

All my file structure inside of Affinity Photo (meaning projects) does not propagate into iCloud Drive either. Which means, if I delete the app, I loose all my files.

Why Affinity? Why? Are you trying to mess up my head? Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, just do things how they are meant to be done.

[Paul Mudditt]

Files with history are very large and take longer to open and save so keeping them open just like tabs on a browser in the internal sandbox makes sense and this is different from the other apps you mentioned.

When you save outside of the app into an external area, the history is stripped, unless you choose not to, to reduce the file size and provide a faster open time.

[iuri]

@Stepan Pazderka - i'm also pretty confused on the file handling of affinity. This should be primary focus for the next version. 
How is everyone else dealing with it?

Here's my related topic: